


Recovery

by A_simple_lee



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Fluff, Panic Attack, Reader Insert, Tickle fic, Tickling, ticklish!Reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 06:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_simple_lee/pseuds/A_simple_lee
Summary: you have a panic attack, but Tony and Peter are there to help you figure things out. All you want to do is forget about it for a bit, so they try to shift your focus.





	Recovery

Fear. It skulks up behind you, and looms there, a shadow in the back of your mind. You turn to the next page of your revision. Fear bristles like a cat, dark scrawling shapes extending outwards to tap your shoulder. You ignore it. Tony’s clanging as he works on his suit makes for a good distraction.

The page of questions & notes seems a few miles away. You pick up a pen and place it on the paper to check the distance hasn’t actually changed. Skeletal formulae seem foreign now, and this question doesn’t make any sense. You start trying to answer it anyway. Stoichiometric ratios factored in, calculating the moles of Calcium chloride present shouldn’t be an issue.

But it is. That’s definitely not the right answer, and you can’t proceed with the next steps of the question without getting this first bit right.

Break it down into steps, you think. Calculate the moles, the mass of the reactant, then the enthalpy change.

Fear’s tendrils snake up your neck. It’s cold, but it burns, static paralyzing part of your brain. The white noise of Stark’s crashing and banging becomes slightly drowned out.

Reworking the numbers, your answer still comes out illogically high. Where’s the mistake?

This is only the second question. You’re only meant to spend 5 minutes answering this. It should be easy.

Peter’s discarded notes lie along the lab counter from yours. There’s green pen saying he got full marks. Of course he would. He deserves to.

Perhaps the overestimate will cancel out if you carry on working anyway. Your hand scrawls out three more formula triangles, their symbols etched into muscle memory at this point. This should be easy.

It’s not.

None of the formulae you know seem to fix the mess of your calculations. Fear bristles again, and reforms. Changes shape. It’s a writhing mass of interwoven pencil scribbles, reaching up to brush your cheek.

Tears fall onto your paper. It’s been 45 minutes. You should move onto the next question and give up, but this should be easy, it should be easy, it should be-

Fear swells, pushing, invading, all-consuming. It screams in your conscious, a frigid wave with riptides pulling you in ten different directions at once. You try to push it back, you try, but it’s too much, and you’re drowning.

_You can’t breathe._

The fear rises up and into your mouth, down to your lungs. It pushes and pulls and tugs. Your pen clatters to the floor as your ribcage is forced to expand and contract, in and out and in and out, you’re breathing too fast but you’re drowning, you’re drowning.

This thing has control of your body now. You’re trapped in a machine that’s not following your orders. You sit up and lean against the lab bench, trying to fend off the feeling of something contorting your respiratory system over and over again.

“Shit-” A voice. Tony.

He’s rushing around from his corner of the lab, concern lacing his features as his eyes scan your tear-streaked face and heaving chest.

“T-to–ny” It’s so hard to speak. You need to talk, explain, but there’s too much air passing in and out. Static creeps in at your toes and fingers, arms and legs going numb. Your knees buckle slightly, and you hold your hands up in front of your face. You can’t feel them. It’s just static.

Tony’s in front of you now, hands outstretched but not touching you.

“Hey, hey, deep breaths okay?”

“I-I’m—–so-rry, p-pan—ic–” the words are interspersed with hiccups. Fear isn’t letting you speak.

“Look at me, kid. Don’t try to talk. Just focus on your breathing. It’s okay.” Slowly, cautiously, he places a hand on your arm. You grip onto the lifeline. The fear recoils slightly.

It’s a long, slow five minutes of gaining back your bodily control after that. Of trying to breathe in for seven seconds, and failing, and trying again until it works.

_One, two, three, four, five-_

_One, two, three-_

_One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. There._

You don’t realize it’s Tony counting the whole time until you take your first controlled breath in what feels like eons.

“Well done, kid. You okay?” He mutters, and you give him a weak smile.

“Y-yeah, I’m good. Thank you.” There are still hiccups interrupting your speech, but they’re less persistent. You can breathe by yourself again.

Tony pulls your chair closer, and you sit down facing him. He’s crouched down, still trying to read you.

“S-sorry, I had a panic attack.” It feels good to be able to say it without gasping for air.

“I know. It’s fine. They’re normal. Do you want to talk about it?”

“N-no. I think I need to-” hiccup. “-take my mind off it for a bit first.”

“Okay. Wanna come help me? Or I could get Pete to come down-”

“Yeah, can we get Pete?”

So Tony leaves you in the lab with a glass of water whilst he goes to get Peter. You blindly reach out and slam your chemistry revision shut. It’s about five minutes before he comes back, Pete bouncing down the stairs behind him. They give you a smile as they come in, and you smile back.

“Hey, so what’re we working on?” Peter asks, pausing to hug you on his way in. The three of you stride over to Tony’s bench, and the afternoon dissolves into terrible puns and light jibes at one another. It’s exactly what you need. They’re what you need.

“So the attendant says have a nice flight, and then-” You can’t finish your sentence because you’re laughing too hard, but you don’t need to, because Peter steps in to clear things up.

“-and then I said ‘You too’.” He sighs, smiling slightly and pretending not be be embarrassed as Tony snorts.

“You’re a disaster.”

“He knows,” you laugh, typing in one last command word on the computer before leaving the work alone. It’s finished.

“So,” Tony begins as you start packing up. “What are we having for dinner?”

“Pizza?” You suggest, holding the door open for the others.

“Sure.”

Eight o'clock. The first episode of Star Trek: Discovery is playing on Netflix, and you’re waiting for the pizza to arrive.

“My attack. It was about Chemistry,” you say over the TV. Tony turns the volume down.

“I got stuck on a question and I just-I don’t know. Sometimes I feel stupid. Peter gets it so easily, and it takes me so much longer to understand. Anyway, it wasn’t that big of a deal, so I don’t know why it happened. But yeah. Thanks for earlier. I just needed time to calm down. Still do.”

Your mentor just nods, wrapping an arm around you.

“No problem. Pete and I are great at distracting people, anyway,” he grins.

“Nah, I think that’s just you, Mr. Stark.” Peter chimes in.

“True,” you laugh, and Pete leans over to give you a high-five.

Tony’s hand tries to withdraw itself from around your torso, giving it a gentle squeeze in what is probably meant to be a calming gesture. But it tickles, so you find yourself yelping slightly and twitching away

instead.

“Gah-don’t!”

“Shit, did I hurt you? Sorry-”

“No, no, It just- I’m ticklish.”

“Oh?”

You’ve definitely made a mistake, but you don’t realise this until Tony all but corners you against the couch, fingers skittering experimentally over your sides.

“Ahahaha-Tony!”

“Now why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” He ignores your please for mercy, hands finding purchase in the gaps between your ribs. This is now an exploration, and Tony has every intention of mapping out all of your sensitive spots.

“Yohou dihidn’t ask!” You answer, trying desperately to squirm away but failing miserably. Tony’s vibrating his fingers into your tummy, which tickles way more than should be allowed. Your body curls inwards in an attempt to shut him out, but traps his hands there instead.

“Tohohony-plehehease! Mehehercy!”

“Hmm, let me think about that.” He extracts one of his hands to spider under your arm, and grins when you let out a shriek. “Nah.”

You catch Peter in the corner of your eye, moving to leave.

“Hey, kid! Where do you think you’re going?” Tony pauses his onslaught, giving you time to catch your breath in amongst residual giggles.

“I-uh-I need to get plates for the pizza?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get 'em in a minute.”

Peter comes back, and is about to sit down when Tony starts tickling you again.

“No-wait- Tohohony! Ihihi’m gohohohonna-” you’re about to threaten him when he cuts you off with a smirk.

“You’re gonna what? Laugh?”

“Nohoho! Pehehete, hehelp me!”

“Kid, stay out of this.” Tony turns to give Peter a look of warning. You hear Peter respond, but can’t make out the words above your own laughter. An instant later, Peter appears behind Tony, and tweaks his sides.

“Ah-what did I tell you?” He yelps, turning around and attacking Peter. His laughter rings through the room not seconds later, interspersed with pleas for mercy. You take a few seconds to recover, before deciding it’s probably best that you help Pete.

As far as distractions go, you reckon this counts as a pretty good one.


End file.
